 "R K Singh")
The massive power outage in Mumbai on October 12 last year was caused by human error and not due to cyber attack, said Union Power Minister R K Singh.
"Two teams investigated the power outage and submitted that the outage was caused by human error and not due to cyber attack. One of the teams submitted that cyber attack did happen but they were not linked to the Mumbai grid failure," Singh told news agency ANI on Tuesday.
"Cyber attacks happened on our northern and southern region load dispatch centres but they (malware) could not reach our operating system. Maharashtra Home Minister has informed that cyber-attacks happened on their SCADA system in Mumbai," added Singh.
While citing a probe report, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Monday said the Maharashtra Cyber Cell has mentioned in its preliminary report that unaccounted data may have been transferred to the MSEBs (state electricity board) server from a foreign server.
He, however, did not name the country from where the data may have been transferred.
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Deshmukh's comments came in the wake of a US company's report claiming that amidst the border tension in Ladakh last year, a Chinese government-linked group of hackers targeted India's critical power grid system through a malware.
The report raised suspicion whether the massive power outage in the financial capital was a result of the online intrusion.
On October 12, a grid failure in Mumbai resulted in a massive power outage, stopping trains on tracks, hampering those working from home amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and hitting the economic activity hard.
The home minister said the cyber cell has mentioned in the report that 14 Trojan horses (malware) may have been introduced in the MSEBs server.
Secondly, 8 GB unaccounted data may have been transferred into the MSEBs server from a foreign server, he said.
Thirdly, the Cell has said in the report that there is a possibility of attempts being made to log into the MSEBs server through several blacklisted IP addresses, Deshmukh added.
So, from the findings of the Cyber Crime department and electricity department experts, it seems that the October 12 blackout could have been due to it (sabotage), he said.
"We don't have evidence to say that the cyber-attacks were carried out by China or Pakistan. Some people say that the group behind the attacks is Chinese but we don't have evidence. China will definitely deny it," said Singh.
"Cyberattack issue is not just confined to Mumbai but it could spread across the country. We should not politicise this issue. I have spoken to Union Minister R K Singh about this. He has sought details about it and said that we should remain alert," said Deshmukh on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Power Minister Nitin Raut on Tuesday said he will table all the reports on the October 12 Mumbai power outage in the Assembly tomorrow.
